How Google's ContentID System Fails At Fair Use & The Public Domain

from the it's-a-problem dept

We recently covered how YouTube briefly pulled down the NASA-uploaded public domain video footage from the Curiosity rover's Mars landing. We were quite careful in the piece not to call it a DMCA takedown, because it was pretty clear that the DMCA was not involved. Unfortunately, many have been assuming that it was via the DMCA (and there are even lengthy comments discussing aspects of the DMCA). However, the DMCA had nothing to do with it. It appears that the whole thing was due to the way that YouTube's ContentID system works.

In response to all of this, the EFF has an important post highlighting the serious problems of an automated system like ContentID, which simply cannot understand algorithmically when content may be fair use or public domain. The EFF's fear is that the ContentID system doesn't have the (extremely limited, unfortunately) protections that the DMCA includes, and which were the focus of much discussion in our original post.

Content ID, by contrast, is an opaque and proprietary system where the accuser can serve as the judge, jury, and executioner. Worse, the person whose speech is being silenced has little recourse. The Content ID system tips whatever balance is present in the DMCA and allows even more pernicious forms of manipulation and abuse. In a Wired column earlier this year, Andy Baio enumerated some of the problems that YouTube users encounter:

But even without taking scammers into account, the premise behind Content ID is just incompatible with fair use and the public domain. It's impossibly complicated to define in a set of "business rules" for automated enforcement. Allowing Content ID robots to apply the rules leads to oversimplification that chills legitimate speech.

If anything, as Tim Lee's article explains, ContentID is actually demonstrating (quite clearly) why there are so many concerns about copyright takedowns. Copyright system supporters often insist that it's "easy" for sites to recognize and take down infringing content, and use any evidence of infringement as a damning sign of a site not doing enough. But, the reality on the ground is that making a determination on whether or not something is infringing is not nearly as easy as some people believe:

But in accommodating the demands of large copyright holders, YouTube has inadvertently reminded us all of the crucial point that flagging copyright infringement isn't nearly as simple as it is often portrayed by rightsholders. Even scanning videos for exact content matches that exceed certain thresholds (in order to preserve at least some fair uses) actually fails in all sorts of interesting ways.

Rather than acting as a neutral arbitrator between major content companies and independent organizations, YouTube's system favors the larger rightsholders that make use of its Content ID system over smaller creators. And because it's a private system that goes beyond the DMCA, the Content ID system is under no legal obligation to comply with the DMCA's safeguards and timelines.

ContentID certainly has some nice features -- including an innovative new revenue stream for content creators. But there are significant problems with it, concerning how it handles fair use and public domain material, which serve to highlight why the idea of a "silver bullet" solution for online infringement is so problematic.

Reader Comments

Hmmm...

What I'm also wondering is... Are all of these places filing ContentID claims against each other for the same public domain footage as well? Because the cat-fight that would ensue there would be enough, in my mind, for some attention to get brought to this situation to start working on a fix.

Easier

"But in accommodating the demands of large copyright holders, YouTube has inadvertently reminded us all of the crucial point that flagging copyright infringement isn't nearly as simple as it is often portrayed by rightsholders."

Yet because of Google/YouTube's Content-ID it's much easier for right holders to flag "infringing materials".

Scripps Apology

We apologise for the temporary inconvenience experienced when trying to upload and view a NASA clip early Monday morning. We made a mistake. We reacted as quickly as possible to make the video viewable again, and we’ve adjusted our workflow processes to remedy the situation in future.

Not a word in their apology about Scripps' similar takedown of NASA TV video last April.

Re: Backfire?

What if a bunch of users (hundreds would be nice) went after the different corporate entities and did the same thing?

You know.

You know that the law doesn't treat people equally. Someone would talk to a politician. The DA would file felony charges. People would plea-bargain to misdemeanours and count themselves lucky just to get a fine and probation with no jail time.

Re: Scripps Apology

Scripps Company is loosely associated to ABC, which is owned by Disney. So the lack of appology is no surprise. This really is all Google's fault for implementing such an easily defrauded system of takedowns.

Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

99.9% of the piracy on YouTube is put up by anonymous posters. They're probably not really anonymous to Google because the company collects tons of data on their users. They could easily match IP addresses from GMail to IP addresses of YouTube posters and get a solid match in most cases.

Now most people suspect that Google doesn't really want to solve the piracy problem because that's how they get their content. They pretty much said as much in the infamous YouTube emails uncovered during the Viacom suit.

But the fact is that Google could easily require everyone to log in to YouTube before uploading something. They require you to log in to use practically all of their other services. Heck, they want a working cell phone number of use tools like the AppEngine. That's just how they make sure there's a real body on the other end of the line.

So they could do the same thing. Then they could put up a button that allowed people to get the real name of the uploader for a mano-a-mano law suit. No need to require a subpoena or anything. Just let the users duke it out.

That would clean up 99.9% of the trouble. The rest would be interesting edge cases about fair use and quoting.

Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

And yet, it is still a DMCA fault. I take it that Google uses the whole ContentID system as a preemptive measure, in an effort to alleviate any pressure of the DMCA claims or to reinforce their DMCA "safe heaven" position...

Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

It would be a lot easier if copyright holders in general would act in good faith. Instead, they act like the seagulls in Finding Nemo: "Mine"..."Mine"..."Mine!"..."Mine! Mine!".."MINE MINE MINEMINEMINEMINE"

How do you start a dialog with that? Maybe we should dub that the LendInk Effect?

Re: Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

Dave, they do act in good faith. But at the same time, most copyright holders face a wave of violations, and because of the structure of DMCA, they must police content on the whole internet on a daily basis to stay ahead.

Honestly, I don't think they have a sense of humor anymore for the most part.

As the original poster mentions, the real issue is a anonymous nature of YouTube, which emboldens people to post copyright material with impunity. How often do you see "not mine, just posted it anyway" sort of message on Youtube? They know they are wrong but they do it anyway.

" which serve to highlight why the idea of a "silver bullet" solution for online infringement is so problematic."

Mike, once again you are looking at a narrow situation, and attempting to broadly apply it to the rest of the situations. ContentID generally works well, does what it is suppose to do, and deals with what would otherwise be massive, stupid amounts of infringement.

Fair Use claims are narrow in scope and not all that common. Most people putting up a video on Youtube will never have such a claim. Why shut down something that works for almost everyone, just to handle exceptional cases?

Wouldn't it be better to just have an extra field on the submit site, that says: "If you are claiming fair use on this content, please explain why you feel you have a fair use case". SO when ContentID flags something, it can forward it to a human for review.

The best solution isn't to kill something that works, just because you feel it may hurt in exceptional cases.

Re: Re: Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

Act in good faith?

In you have the courage to say that out loud despite the numbers showing that copyright holders completely ignore any good faith and just go for the jugular?

The anonymous nature of Youtube is a fantasy, there are no anonymous on Youtube, if subpoenaed Google gives up all their information on the account which includes the IP address, other accounts of Google services and all the tracking that Google did on that user which all together have a great possibility of identifying the user of that account.

I see a lot of accounts uploading movies there and incredible the people who do it also post their personal videos showing their faces, are those people hardcore pirates or just clueless people you know like the ones you see in the streets?

Honestly, the people's sense of humor about copyrights has gone too, people are not willing to put up with it anymore, this nonsense has to stop and it will stop.

Re: Re: Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

Dave, they do act in good faith.

Really? Because I can only think of a few cases where rights holders didn't adopt a 'shoot first and ask questions never' stance. For every article that might show 'good faith', I can point you to ten that didn't.

because of the structure of DMCA, they must police content on the whole internet on a daily basis to stay ahead.

I think you would be hard pressed to show me examples of authors 'staying ahead' by sending DMCA notices.

A little bit of history

Here's a little bit from the history of American censorship, for those of you who weren't born yet in 1963...

I'm going to quote from the syllabus to Bantam Books, Inc. v. Sullivan (1963). Ordinarily, quoting from the syllabus is frowned upon, but I'm offering this a history lesson—not for any holding:

The Rhode Island Legislature created a Commission "to educate the public concerning any book . . . or other thing containing obscene, indecent or impure language, or manifestly tending to the corruption of the youth as defined [in other sections] and to investigate and recommend the prosecution of all violations of said sections."

The Commission's practice was to notify a distributor that certain books or magazines distributed by him had been reviewed by the Commission and had been declared by a majority of its members to be objectionable for sale, distribution or display to youths under 18 years of age. Such notices requested the distributor's "cooperation," and advised him that copies of the lists of "objectionable" publications were circulated to local police departments, and that it was the Commission's duty to recommend prosecution of purveyors of obscenity. Four out-of-state publishers of books widely distributed in the State sued in a Rhode Island court for injunctive relief and a declaratory judgment that the law and the practices thereunder were unconstitutional. The court found that the effect of the Commission's notices was to intimidate distributors and retailers and that they had resulted in the suppression of the sale of the books listed. In this Court, the State Attorney General conceded that the notices listed several publications that were not obscene within this Court's definition of the term.

Held: The system of informal censorship disclosed by this record violates the Fourteenth Amendment.

The first major difference between the situation examined in Bantam Books and the present YouTube situation is the current absence of overt state action. In Rhode Island, they set up a state commission to pressure the distributors. In YouTube's case, the large corporations don't need no stinkin' state commission.

The second major difference appears to be in the threats delivered: The Rhode Island commission explicitly threatened criminal prosecution. In YouTube's case, we don't know exactly what threats the large corporations have privately delivered to Google.

Now for the similarity:

In both cases we see an effective censorship regime. The censorship is no less effective for its “informality”.

There is no provision whatever for judicial superintendence before notices issue or even for judicial review of the Commission's determinations of objectionableness. The publisher or distributor is not even entitled to notice and hearing before his publications are listed by the Commission as objectionable.

Re:

Re:

ContentID works well indeed if you believe it should work as a sledgehammer, if you need any finesse though ContentID is not it, not by a long shot.

You know why most of the time people don't claim fair use?
Because they don't know they could do it and even when they do know it takes a lot of resources not just financial, but time and human resources to defend such claims that is why they are used so rarely by normal people who would just leave it alone, they have no interest in fighting for it because they can't see why is in their best interest for doing so.

ContentID doesn't work at all, you don't even need a study to see it happening all the time, but Google could make available the numbers for all to see and see what is being blocked so people can dive in into that data and mine it for the answers. Would you like to see how that turns out?

I am absolutely sure, that it would show videos the following?

- Videos taken down 100%
- Videos reinstated 20%
- Videos taken down permanently with strong claims of infringement 20%
- Videos taken down with dubious claims 80%

You wanna know why?

Because fair use is not recognized by copyright holders.
Because copyright holders are not mandated to keep records of their property and dealing and thus being unable to tell if something is infringing or not.

Is there a frigging central database where anybody can go look to see if something was licensed and by whom and what was the terms?

If there is not, people wouldn't know what is infringing or not not even the copyright holder.

Then there is the disgusting attitude copyright holders holds towards fair use and copyright exceptions.

Copyright should be scrapped it is not compatible with modern day society.

Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

Now most people suspect that Google doesn't really want to solve the piracy problem because that's how they get their content.

Not most people. Just a small number of conspiracy theorists.

That would clean up 99.9% of the trouble.

Not even close. Most YT uploaders are not intentionally, if at all, violating copyright laws.

Those that are could very easily circumvent the system you describe. All they have to do is create a new google login for each thing they want to upload. There is literally no way, short of demanding to see government-issued ID, for google to have any assurance that users are using their real name and do not have many accounts. Even demanding a working cell phone number doesn't mean a thing, since I can get multiple working cell phones for $10 each at my local supermarket.

Re:

I haven't been known to agree with Mike Mansick, but I must back up what he is exposing here.

We can all agree that Cripps Company used Google's Content-ID to take down PUBLIC DOMAIN footage of Curiosity's landing on Mars. For years (and I mean since Google's takeover of YouTube) these type of takedowns have been going on. Fair use and public domain footage takedown requests are rampant. Content-ID is rife with abuse like this.

To me, Mike is simply pointing out a major problem and, is pointing out that it needs to be fixed. I agree with Mike. It really should not be that that easy to take down public domain footage.

The fact that Content ID facilitated a takedown of NASA's own footage from their OWN YouTube page is just one of MANY examples of the flaws in Google's Content ID system. This one just hit when millions of my fellow countryman watched Curiosity land and would have noticed it in stead of watching the NBC branded Olympics.

Thank you Mike for being one of the few to expose the abuses of content companies.

that is a legal precept, determined by a court, not by an idiot user such as masnick..

really masnick... make some sense one day,, and learn about the things you claim to know about.. stop being a fuckwit...

we allready know you are not very bright, but im sure even you can work out you do not have the right or ability in any form to determine is some content is "fair use" or a copyright breach.. fair use is a legal definition, it's not for morons like mansick to make that desicion, or anyone else..

but nice try at disinformation, way to further confuse your simpleton disiples.

Re: Re:

most 'humans' on this web site, do not even know what fair use means,, let alone have the ability to make the legal determination as to whether it is or not.. perhaps not allowing you to make that legal decision, is the correct course of action...

it would not be a very nice world is everone got to decide if what they were doing was legal, fair, right or appropriate..

because it's clear the majority here would fail to make that determination.. especially mansick, and his trolls..

Re: Re:

you can claim whatever you like, that will NEVER make it so, even is masnick says so..

you cannot claim fair use, you can try to prove fair use in a court, but that would require you to understand what fair use is.. which you have failed to display that understanding..

mansick knows this to be a fact, or else he is lying to you to make a point, or he is just plain stupid.. for making false and misleading statements ... if you choose to believe masnick,, you'll find that a poor defense at law " but Masnick said I could do it ""..

it could even be argued that Masnick in inciting crime with his deception and lies.. inciting weak minds to do his bidding..

Re:

What about public domain? That is WHAT THE NASA VIDEO FOOTAGE WAS. Is public domain speicified under fair use? Not entirely. But Mike is right, the takedown must be decided by the courts before deletion.

"In August 2008 US District Judge Jeremy Fogel of San Jose, California ruled that copyright holders cannot order a deletion of an online file without determining whether that posting reflected "fair use" of the copyrighted material."

Guess what trolling asshole, I just used Fair Use to explain it to you.

Re: Re:

"Is there a frigging central database where anybody can go look to see if something was licensed and by whom and what was the terms?"

The answer as you know is, NO. You have to upload the video first, then content ID either matches it, or it doesn't. Even then you aren't safe, it can be flagged at any time. Sometimes the rights holder just wants to put ads on the video, which to me is fine. Even then, you are not safe, they can change their mind at any time and now you have one strike or many.

I've had videos up for years with 100's of thousands of views, and then BAM strike!

There's also doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for the strikes sometimes. I had maybe 20 VERY old clips from one network on my channel, the gave me a strike for ONE video. Searching YouTube for that network's three letter acronym gave me thousands of results that have mostly been on YouTube for years as well. I took down all the videos I had from their network in what I like to refer to the Megaupload Effect, (Scare one, and the other's take care of themselves for fear) And now nobody get's to see those clips from 20+ years ago that they will never release to the public.

I've had live performances that were taped by audience members flagged for one song consistently. The rights holder just wanted to put ads on the video, fine. But this is a band who is very bootleg/taper friendly, so I probably could have fought it, but is it really worth the trouble. The other side to that is, the rights holder can change their mind as stated above, at any time and my account now has more strikes. For a video, shot by a fan, of a band that invites people to film/tape.

There are many tv show clips on YouTube, some shows seem to encourage it, Daily Show, Southpark, etc, but how do you know which others are ok with it until you upload?

Re: Re:

Actually, if I remember correctly, the reason Google put in the ContentID system was not because of the DMCA but rather in an attempt to make movie studios happy.

As one of those who was confused and thought this was a DMCA takedown -- we keep hearing about DMCA takedowns that I just assume every takedown is a DMCA takedown, I know, don't assume -- I have to say that I am still confused about this whole thing. I do appear to not be alone in my hatred for automated systems for dealing with these things though.

When will companies learn that making movie studios happy is hazardous to their business models?

DMCA TAkedown Perjury Provision

"However, some people abuse the DMCA system. Despite not having a valid claim of copyright infringement, a person who wants content taken down may send a takedown notice anyway, in order to have material they find offensive, defamatory, or otherwise objectionable removed, or simply to harass the person responsible for the account which will be affected by the DMCA notice. What many who abuse the DMCA system do not realize is that they can be sued and held civilly liable for the havoc they wreak by sending these fake notices."

My question is why the serial abusers of the DMCA are not being sued or procecuted for doing what the article says is illegal.

Re: Re: Re:

if you kill someone, you do not get to say if it was murder, or manslaughter, or accendental.. if you rob a bank,, you are not the person who determines what crime you committed.. it's the courts.. "

Ah, good, so we are in agreement then that content should not be taken down at the say-so of just one party, but only after a legal challenge in front of a court. Nice to see you join the right side finally, and see that extra-judicial determinations of legality are wrong and should not be left up to only the accusing party.

Re: DMCA TAkedown Perjury Provision

Ah, you must have missed the little disclaimer on that particular page, listing it as a 'low court rule only'.

With regards to your question, the 'justice' system as it stands today is heavily weighted in favor of those with money, so the odds of the rich and powerful actually being held accountable for their actions is approximately the same as winning the lottery.

Did Scripps issue a takedown notice to YouTube re the NASA video, or was it ContentID that automatically classified the video as infringing and automatically disabled the video, albeit temporarily, using Google's own standard notice? If the latter, then all the invective hurled at Scripps seems to have been misplaced.

IOW, disabling a video do not necessarily mean that a "big, bad, bully" was the culprit. There are other possibilities, as this article aptly notes.

Re:

"Did Scripps issue a takedown notice to YouTube re the NASA video, or was it ContentID that automatically classified the video as infringing and automatically disabled the video, albeit temporarily, using Google's own standard notice? If the latter, then all the invective hurled at Scripps seems to have been misplaced."

It was a Content-ID takedown issued by Scripps. They knew it sidestepped the DCMA and Google has done nothing to change Content-ID to make it less abuse-able by copyright trolls. So really both parties are at fault.

Re: Re: Re:

Claiming infringement doesn't make it so, either, yet here we are taking someone at their word. It's wrong because I said so is no more valid than it's right because I said so. If you would at least be consistent we might be more willing to take you seriously, but in the end you're just a shill.

Re: A little bit of history

And...? Curious what the point of this really was. I mean, we're talking about corporate action, not state, which means they are free to make those sorts of determinations and censor whatever they like on their own pages. Thus my confusion as the the thrust of your post.

Re:

Well, why don't you go complain with the EFF.

5. Is Fair Use a Right or Merely a Defense?

Lawyers disagree about the conceptual nature of fair use. Some lawyers claim that fair use is merely a defense to a claim of copyright infringement. Although fair use is often raised as a defense, many lawyers argue that fair use can also be viewed as having a broader scope than this. If fair use is viewed as a limitation on the exclusive rights of copyright holders, fair use can be seen as a scope of positive freedom available to users of copyrighted material. On this view, fair use is the space which the U.S. copyright system recognizes between the rights granted to copyright holders and the rights reserved to the public, where uses of works may or may not be subject to copyright protection. Copyright law gives the decision about whether copyright law applies to a particular use in this space to a Federal Court judge, to decide after weighing up all relevant factors and the underlying policies of copyright law.

Apparently you want to spread that myth that "fair use" is not a valid claim or some nonsense like that.

Is not a claim is the law under US code title 17 chapter 1 paragraph 107, you should read it some time.

The law says it is legal to ignore copyright in some cases, so claiming fair use is all good and well and the final decision if it is fair use or not lies in the hands of a judge, not Google, not you and certainly not media companies.

Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

Requiring personal phone identification is an excellent way to shut people out and deprive the world of the possibility to anonymously upload videos. Dictatorships around the world love you Bob. They love you for enabling censorship like you do.

You're offtopic bob and you know it. ContentID is an illigal system it seems. Bypassing DMCA law.

A first step would be for Google to force filing a DMCA notice for all detected possible infringments. They tried something, it's a failure. ContentID should go away to the "Chilling Effects" department it belongs to.

Re:

Did Scripps issue a takedown notice to YouTube re the NASA video, or was it ContentID that automatically classified the video as infringing and automatically disabled the video, albeit temporarily, using Google's own standard notice? If the latter, then all the invective hurled at Scripps seems to have been misplaced.

Scripps did not appear to issue a takedown, but they're still the party at fault. ContentID works by having one party (in this case Scripps) designate content that it claims to hold the copyright on. It then searches for that content elsewhere and THEN gives the (claimed) copyright holder options (including to take it down or monetize it with ads).

So Scripps still (1) uploaded the content and said it was its own copyright and (2) when asked about it, said to take the content down.

Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

Yep, bob, agreed. And they already require you to be logged. It's magical isn't it? You got what you wanted. Except that, as others pointed, it doesn't work. Ppl will make pseudonym accounts. I have about 4 active pseudonyms and others less used and I'm running more than 1 blog. Because I can. If you read about Fernando Pessoa you'll see he used several pseudonyms, many of them we found out after a long time. Using pseudonyms is good for a variety of things and protect yourself from a dictatorial government is one of them. Producing artistic works without getting your real name involved (ie: erotic works that wouldn't bode well with your employer for instance).

So you see, you can't force every1 into registering and giving real IDs. Data is flawed and can be breached. And I personally intend to let my pseudonyms die like that, unknown. So get out of your fantasy world where everything is simple. News flash for you: real world is complex. And it doesn't need copyright.

Re: Re: A little bit of history

Is the purpose of public education merely to churn out satisfactory assembly-line workers for (non-)employment in dying rust-belt industries?

Or is there a larger benefit to building an educated citizenry?

Thus my confusion as the the thrust of your post.

As it stands, re-reading my own original post —or rather not re-reading it— —just skimming over it— the whole thing is, sadly, tl;dr.

If I had hauled in additional discussion of the six strikes censorship plan, and the White House involvement behind that plan, the whole post would have been twice as long, and not necessarily more readable or understandable.

Re: Re: Re:

Oh so ContentID is actually allowing takeover only after a legal judgment?

Or does it mean "fair use" must first be confirmed by a judge before publishing ?

I am so confused now...

Or is it just reflecting the direction your corporate masters want the law to take ?

Lastly, feel free to use your verified real name when posting on here, and follow what you preach. That's just in case your masters want to claim copyright on their IP once they don't need you anymore or choose to dump you to the sharks because you failed the mission they pay good money for.

Re: Re:

Meh, you already know that will just result in another moronic rant when the "censored" post takes an extra click to view. Hopefully the idiocy on display is obvious enough not to need it, and if they're this desperate to make a point maybe they're finally starting to realise they're defeated...

Re:

OK, Sure

Lemme see if I understand this.
If you are a large, wealthy, corporation, and claim to own something, copyright, patent, what have you, that claim is accepted as fact and other companies move to protect you, with no documentation or proof required.

If you are a small company or individual and claim ownership, that claim is not accepted even if documented and proven.

Re:

Re: Re: Re: Well how about asking users to stand behind their content?

"As the original poster mentions, the real issue is a anonymous nature of YouTube, which emboldens people to post copyright material with impunity."

You have to log in to your Youtube account to upload video, AC. There is no "anonymous" uploading of videos. They may be fake users or one-time accounts, but you must log in.

"They know they are wrong"

If they thought it was wrong they wouldn't do it at all.

And finally, given Google's estimates on the number of DMCA takedowns that are fraudulent (40 percent) it would be more accurate to say they face a wave of things they want to take down, not a wave of violations.

Re: Re: Re:

"most 'humans' on this web site, do not even know what fair use means"

I know exactly what it means. And even if I didn't my opinion would be as good as anyone else's. We decide as a group - that's what democracy means. We have the RIGHT to make legal determinations. Who is better qualified than we the people?

"it would not be a very nice world is everone got to decide if what they were doing was legal, fair, right or appropriate.. "

This goes even beyond democracy - we all have conscience and free will. We MUST decide for ourselves if what we are doing is legal, fair, right and appropriate.

I don't like the copyright apologists but I love the pure TechDirt trolls. That was a beautiful set, my friend.

Re:

"Wouldn't it be better to just have an extra field on the submit site, that says: "If you are claiming fair use on this content, please explain why you feel you have a fair use case". SO when ContentID flags something, it can forward it to a human for review."

I love this idea.

But it would be used in millions of cases, not "exceptional cases." People upload to Youtube because they think they have a case that it's OK to do so, whether or not somebody else agrees.

Also, the conglomerates would never stand for it, because it would require them to give up an enormous amount of control. Right now they take down whatever they want without backtalk - why would they want a system that was the same, but with backtalk?

And what if the human reviewer says fair use but the flagger disagrees? Youtube is sued for infringement.

Re: Re: Re:

Not a troll comment, just pointing something out, and I do agree with you. NASA could definitely sue them. I see two things as to why they won't. Mind you this is a speculation on my part as well.

1. Problem is that NASA has its very tight budget to consider. Most likely they either would prefer to spend that budget innovating and doing research. Filing a lawsuit would whither away their budget.

2. They played low key or didn't know about it, and they properly protested the takedown with the millions of other people on YouTube (millions in metaphor).

Remixing Copyright Law

Fair use is a fact-intensive inquiry performed by courts. A simple algorithm cannot perform this task properly. A public debate is currently underway on how copyright laws and policy can be changed to address new creative forms such as the practice of remixing.